Benoit Roig

• PhD and HDR
• CEO at University of Nîmes

Background Airtankers are able to drop volumes of liquid (suppressant or fire retardant) varying from less than 1 m³ to several tens of cubic metres directly on a fire or with the objective to form barriers of retardant to stop or reduce fire propagation. Aims The objective of this work is to demonstrate that Computational Fluid Dynamics can be us...

There are several analytical procedures available for the monitoring of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air, which differ mainly on sampling procedures. The Coriolis micro air sampler is a tool normally designed for biological air sampling. In this paper, the Coriolis micro bio collector is used to evaluate its ability to sample organic co...

The assessment of food authenticity is a topic that gained a lot of interest at the international level. This term includes misidentification of variety, origin, production system, processing but also adulteration. These frauds all have an analytical component, and research tends to offer new analytical solutions to manage them. One of them is non-...

O período entre 2018 e 2022 mostrou-nos que o problema dos incêndios à escala global não está a diminuir, antes pelo contrário. Parece que as consequências das alterações climáticas já estão a afectar a ocorrência de incêndios florestais em várias partes do Mundo, de uma forma que só esperaríamos que acontecesse vários anos mais tarde. Em muitos pa...

Environment can be affected by a variety of micropollutants. In this paper, we develop a system to assess the toxicity on an environmental sample, based on the expression of a nanoluciferase under the control of the STB5 promotor in a yeast. The STB5 gene encodes for a transcription factor involved in a pleiotropic drug resistance and in the oxidat...

Molecular approaches are powerful tools that are used for medical or environmental diagnoses. However, the main limitations of such a tools are that they extract low levels of DNA and they do not remove the inhibitors of polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Although the use of polycation to complex and purify DNA has been described in the literature, e...

This study aims to contribute to the risk management of pharmaceuticals in the environment, illustrating risk perceptions of lay people and experts from Southwestern Europe (Portugal, Spain, and France). The psychometric paradigm was applied to assess risk regarding four hazards: pharmaceuticals in the environment (i.e., broadly framed), pharmaceut...

Estrogenic compounds are contaminants that may be active at low concentrations and are a major concern for environmental quality. They interact with organisms via Estrogen Receptors (ER). Some detection methods which have been developed use the ability of ER to interact with short consensus DNA sequences known as Estrogen Response Elements (ERE). S...

The presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment is an emergent unknown environmental problem, linked to increased production and consumption of pharmaceuticals and, as such, understanding risk perception is fundamental. This study focuses on exploring causes (trust and knowledge) and effects (intention and proper individual disposal of pharmaceu...

Legionella risk assessment is nowadays based on the presence and concentration of either Legionella pneumophila or Legionella spp. Many species of Legionella can cause Legionnaires' disease, indeed about half of the known species have been associated with infection. The aim of this work was to develop a method to assess the composition of the Legio...

For the analysis of volatile bacterial compounds, solid phase microextraction (SPME) is currently the most widely used metabolite concentration technique. Recently, the potential of stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) for this use has been demonstrated. These two approaches were therefore used in combination with gas-chromatography coupled with mas...

Association Rule Mining (ARM) in the context of imperfect data (e.g. imprecise data) has received little attention so far despite the prevalence of such data in a wide range of real-world applications. In this work, we present an ARM approach that can be used to handle imprecise data and derive imprecise rules. Based on evidence theory and Multiple...

The intensity of scientific and technological development is changing society and its relationship with the environment (domestic, professional, environmental, etc.). These modifications generate new opportunities, but also new threats for human health, safety, economy, the environment, and the social structure. Therefore, society is increasingly c...

The presence of human pharmaceutical products in the environment is a source of concern for both the environment and public health. Numerous options exist to reduce the release of pharmaceuticals, with several approaches being previously described. This article aims to describe the new trends.

We propose a new approach combining the principles and advantages of stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) and headspace sorptive extraction (HSSE). Stir bars have so far never been used for the extraction of volatile/semi-volatile bacterial compounds. The effectiveness of two stir bars with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) or ethylene glycol/silicone (EG...

The transfer of metal and metalloid trace elements (MTEs) from contaminated soil to grapevines is a major issue for grape consumption and for the associated health risks. Based on an isotopic approach, we shed light on the concept of MTE bioavailability. The bioavailable fractions are identified by using the Sr-isotope ratio as a proxy for MTEs. Th...

Un intérêt croissant est exprimé par les organisations pour le développement d’approches visant à valoriser et tirer parti des expériences passées afin d’améliorer leurs processus de décision. Dans ce cadre de Retour d’Expérience, l’étude d’approches semi-automatisées pour la capitalisation et l’exploitation des connaissances revêt un intérêt centr...

One of the main pursuits, yet most difficult, in monitoring studies is to identify the sources of environmental pollution. In this study, we have identified health-care facilities from south European countries as an important source of pharmaceuticals in the environment. We have estimated that compounds consumed in by the elderly and released from...

Concentrations of pharmaceutically active compounds (PACs) in freshwater systems depend on numerous factors such as land use and hydrometeorological conditions. In the Mediterranean, heavy rain events are of particular importance as they highly influence the concentration of micropollutants found in freshwater and are a source of recurrent first fo...

Several mineral constituents can be detected by UV-visible spectrophotometry either directly (nitrate, nitrite, sulphide, hypochlorite and chromium) or indirectly after a photo-oxidation or a complexation step (ammonia, total nitrogen, iron, copper, mercury, etc.). Among the different mineral constituents, nitrate and phosphate ions are of primary...

In recent years, countries both developed and developing ones have experienced a rapid economic globalization expanding economic activities. Although this economic globalization process is fruitful for the economy; however, what role it plays in the promotion of the human development index is still unknown. To this end, the study tries to explore t...

Up to now, several studies have investigated estrogen receptor (ER)–estrogen response element (ERE) interaction using biosensors such as surface plasmon resonance. These strategies have aimed to understand the molecular mechanism of such interaction as well as the effect of the ligand on this interaction. These approaches start to be used to determ...

Environmental context The safeguarding of water supplies and drinking water is a major issue when considering human health risk management. In this context, an automatic and on-site fractionation system for the detection of organic contaminants has been developed. The main goal of this system is to establish an initial diagnosis by identifying a cl...

Actions of French governments on waste, resource and energy management force to focus on waste treatment and recovery process. Among these processes, anaerobic digestor offers significant advantages compared to other forms of waste treatment. It permits an organic waste treatment and a double valorization. The organic waste treatment enables the pr...

Medicines play an important role in the treatment and prevention of disease in humans and animals, but residues from these medicines can be released into the environment through a number of routes during their manufacture, use and disposal. It is only recently that the potential environmental impacts of this exposure to pharmaceuticals are being co...

Anti-cancer drugs are an important class of pharmaceutical products. Methotrexate (MTX) is a folic acid antagonist used in high doses as antimetabolite in anti-cancer treatment as well as in low doses for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and adults' psoriasis. In the past, several anti-cancer drugs, including methotrexate, have been found in t...

The diagnosis of diabetic foot infections is difficult due to limitations of conventional culture-based techniques. The objective of this study was to evaluate the contribution of denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) in the microbiological diagnosis of diabetic foot ulcers in comparison to conventional techniques, and also to evaluate the...

Microbial pollution in aquatic environments is one of the crucial issues with regard to the sanitary state of water bodies used for drinking water supply, recreational activities and harvesting seafood due to a potential contamination by pathogenic bacteria, protozoa or viruses. To address this risk, microbial contamination monitoring is usually as...

Drinking water (DW) is increasingly subject to environmental and human threats that alter the quality of the resource and potentially of the distributed water. These threats can be both biological and chemical in nature, and are often cumulated. The increase of technical frame of water quality monitoring following the evolution of water quality sta...

The estrogen receptor (ER) is a transcription factor that binds under 17 β estradiol (E2) stimulation as homodimer to a short DNA consensus sequence named estrogen response element (ERE). The ER/ERE interaction has been assessed by several research groups through different methodologies notably by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) techniques. The bio...

Very few studies are available about TCS toxicity on marine mollusks. The European abalone Haliotis tuberculata is a marine gastropod of economic interest which inhabits rocky shores in Brittany. Since abalone is particularly exposed to anthropogenic pollution, it is a relevant model for ecotoxicological studies. The aim of our study was to assess...

Tributyltin (TBT) and triphenyltin (TPT) are emblematic endocrine disruptors, which have been mostly studied in gonochoric prosobranchs. Although both compounds can simultaneously occur in the environment, they have mainly been tested separately for their effects on snail reproduction. Because large discrepancies in experimental conditions occurred...

This paper proposes a new approach for the on-site detection of micropollutants in water in case of accidental or intentional contamination (characterized by high concentration). The technique is based on the use of an automatic multiple solid phase extraction step (MSPE) followed by direct or indirect UV spectrometry (MSPE/UV) for the detection of...

Aims: Virus detection has often been difficult due to a low concentration in water. In this study, we developed a new procedure based on concentration of virus particles on an innovative support: poly-L-lysine dendrigrafts (DGL), coupled with directed nucleic acid extraction and real-time PCR quantification. Methods and results: This method was...

Abstract Concerns over the threats posed by a large number of molecules, collectively termed as endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) and generally known to alter and disrupt hormone systems and physiological functions, have often been expressed in academic and scholarly debates. From the perspective of classical toxicology, EDCs have genomic mecha...

Background: Exposure to solvents during pregnancy has long been suspected of increasing the risk of congenital malformations, but the lack of prospective assessment of specific solvent exposures has prevented definitive conclusions. Methods: In a cohort of 3421 pregnant women in Brittany (2002-2006), occupational solvent exposure was assessed fr...

An inter-laboratory exercise was organized under the PHARMAS EU project, by the Advanced School of Public Health (EHESP), in order to evaluate the performances of analytical methods for the measurement of antibiotics in waters (surface and tap). This is the first time such an exercise on antibiotics has been organized in Europe, using different kin...

Anthropogenic chemicals occurring in the environment, namely endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), have generated growing concern over their potential adverse effects on human wildlife health and ecosystem processes. This interest resulted particularly from their abilities to mimic the effect of endogenous hormones. In this study, we used stable t...

Triclosan (2,4,4'-trichloro-2'-hydroxy-diphenyl ether; TCS) is an antibacterial agent incorporated in a wide variety of household and personal care products. Because of its partial elimination in sewage treatment plants, TCS is commonly detected in natural waters and sediments. Moreover, due to its high hydrophobicity, TCS accumulates in fatty tiss...

Pharmaceutically active substances undergo transformations starting from human metabolism to degradation in advanced effluent treatment, in environmental processes and finally during drinking water treatment. Often degradation in sewage and water treatment and the environment is incomplete, resulting in the formation of stable transformation produc...

A review was undertaken on the occurrence, toxicity, and degradation of triclosan (TCS; 5-chloro-2,4-dichlorophenoxy)phenol) in the environment. TCS is a synthetic, broad-spectrum antibacterial agent incorporated in a wide variety of household and personal care products such as hand soap, toothpaste, and deodorants but also in textile fibers used i...

Heavy rainfall events, increasing in frequency and intensity with climate change, impact on the quality of the water resource used for drinking-water production. Small-scale water suppliers are particularly sensitive because of their management and the related difficulties of adapting treatment to variations. Decision-support systems, based on moni...

The presence of pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors in the environment raises many questions about risk to the environment and human health. Environmental exposure has been largely studied, providing to date a realistic picture of the degree of contamination of the environment by pharmaceuticals and hormones. Conversely, little information is...

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC) are compounds that alter the normal functioning of the endocrine system of both wildlife and humans. A huge number of chemicals have been identified as endocrine disruptors, among them several pesticides. Pesticides are used to kill unwanted organisms in crops, public areas, homes and gardens, and parasites in m...

About 4000 medical compounds are being used in the drugs applied today. It is estimated that worldwide consumption of active compounds amounts to some 100 000 tons or more per year. Consequently, there is a need to highlight the most important questions and issues related to presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment. Pharmaceuticals in the En...

Pharmaceutical products (PPs) have been detected in surface, ground and drinking waters in Europe and worldwide. This has raised concerns about potential impacts on humans and organisms in the environment. Regulators are now acting on these concerns. For example, Sweden's Stockholm County Council has been working toward the assessment and classific...

Parabens are alkyl esters of p-hydroxybenzoic acid that could be encountered in various environmental waters; and there is little available information about the adverse effects of these compounds on aquatic organisms. Moreover, information concerning their levels and potential environmental long-term effects are currently missing. This paper aims...

The objective of this work was to gather the information about the existing prioritization schemes implemented in different countries to propose lists of pharmaceutical of environmental concern. This document consists in three parts. In the first one, from a literature review we present the existing regulatory strategies and the previous work condu...

IntroductionEmerging TechniquesNew TrendsConclusions References

IntroductionExamples of Potential Applications for Emerging ToolsUse of Bioassays to Screen for ToxicityConclusions and Future TrendsAcknowledgementsReferences

IntroductionRecognition PhaseTransduction PhaseConclusion References

Pharmaceuticals for human use are consumed in significant quantities and their occurrence in aquatic systems has been reported by a number of authors. In the context of environmental risk assessment, there is an increasing interest in evaluating the discharge of pharmaceutical products to surface waters through sewage treatment plants (STP). This c...

Estrogenic compounds are a class of pharmaceutical products harmful to animals and a cause of environmental damage. The biological activity of these compounds is high since they have been designed to act at low concentrations. Thus, even at the low concentrations found in the environment, they may produce deleterious effects on aquatic organisms as...

The monitoring requirements for successfully implementing the WFD will directly depend upon available measurement techniques of demonstrated quality, which will be able to deliver reliable data at an affordable cost. The objectives of SWIFT-WFD (STREP of 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development) focus on the production of...

This chapter presents the complexometric method for the simultaneous determination of copper (Cu), iron (Fe), mercury (Hg) in water and wastewater. . Metallic constituents come from natural origin (ore) or more frequently from anthropogenic pollution. N and P compounds are probably the most important inorganic nonmetallic constituents with regard t...